


Another Name

by Sundial_at_Night



Series: Another Name [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, One Shot, Time Travel, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:08:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24076501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sundial_at_Night/pseuds/Sundial_at_Night
Summary: “Yeah,” said Steve, full of nothing but determination despite Scott’s negative thoughts. “Well, if we don't try, then no one else is going home either.”“If I might interject,” said a terribly familiar accented voice from behind Steve. “I think I can help with that.” A brief flash of green and gold revealed the trickster god, who was looking surprisingly okay-ish for someone who was just full-body slammed by the Hulk less than an hour ago.Or: While while trying to figure out how to get the Tesseract in an alley in NY, Tony, Steve, and Scott meet an unexpected visitor who can make their job a little easier.
Relationships: Loki & Tony Stark, Scott Lang & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark
Series: Another Name [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1739896
Comments: 11
Kudos: 425





	Another Name

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes! This is my first post here :)
> 
> Also, I recently edited this work due to some formatting problems. Other than that, nothing has changed.

Steve jumped the rest of the way to the ground, Sceptre in one hand, shield in the other. He was sporting new bruises, so something had gone wrong, but whatever he had messed up couldn’t _possibly_ be as bad as what Tony had ruined. His uniform was the traditional one, so no one around would be able to distinguish him from his past self, but Tony could see how he had aged when he saw the younger Steve. Yeah, the last few years had been rough all around.

“Cap,” Tony said as the super-soldier turned around. Steve held the Sceptre tightly. It was good that he had it. At least _someone_ finished the mission. He was sitting in a broken car in an alley in New York resting his forehead against his hand. The windows were all open and Scott was behind him, saying something about how he messed up. Tony wasn’t really listening. “Sorry, buddy. We got a problem.”

“Huh,” huffed Scott. “Yeah, we do.” That was an understatement. They had lost their one shot at getting the Tesseract and Tony couldn’t find anyone to blame but himself. He should have known—should have _remembered_ —that the Hulk would come crashing down the stairs. Should have planned better. Now he had ruined it.

“What happened?” he asked, walking closer with his eyebrows narrowing. Steve did that often when he was anxious or frustrated, just intensely narrowed his eyes at whoever happened to be unfortunate enough to get on his bad side. Tony had been on the receiving end of those glares countless times.

Tony opened the door to the car and swung his legs out leaning his head through the open window. The car smelled like cigarettes and as much as Tony liked that smell, he didn’t. The _dust-and-smoke-and-damage_ smell wasn’t much better but preferred to the cigarettes. Still, they needed a place to be mostly out of sight and the rubble-covered sedan had been the least damaged vehicle in the area. “Everything went according to plan until—”

Scott interrupted, jumping out of the car, “The Hulk came flying out of nowhere and smacked you.” The Antman stared at Tony. “The Tesseract flew out of the case and…” he trailed off, swinging his hands around and pacing.

“And Loki got it and then—poof. Dude’s gone,” Tony finished, throwing his hands up. “Just vanished in a puffy smoke cloud, like how Thanos did with the Gauntlet.”

“Is there any way to find him?” Cap asked.

Tony shrugged and Scott scoffed. “Sure,” said the latter dryly. “Left no traces. Nothing. No ideas. Nada. We stuck around for a while to see if you guys—your past selves—had anything. But nope. Not even Thor.”

Actually, Thor had guessed that he had gone to another of the Nine Realms—Elfheim or Vanaheim or something—but quickly added that those places were unreachable without the Bifrost and that they still had no guarantee he would be there. Tony couldn’t remember exactly what he had said, but the point was, Loki was probably light-years away by now, could be anywhere and they had no way to get there.

“I had FRIDAY scan… everywhere,” Tony said. “Nothing definite. Something’s messing with her system. Could be Loki, could be the time-travel. Both. I don’t know.” It was probably the outdated satellites that had limited compatibility with his new systems. He sighed. “Point is, he’s gone, and Thor said he’s a slippery guy so we’re probably never going to see him again.” Tony rubbed his forehead absentmindedly.

“Well, what are we gonna do now?” Steve asked, glaring.

“You know what? Give me a break, Steve. I just got hit in the head with the Hulk,” Tony cried indignantly. It had hurt, but he’d had worse. Being stabbed by an oversized grape was worse. Having a _moon_ thrown at him was worse. The Hulk was nothing he couldn’t handle, but without the suit, it wasn’t exactly pleasant.

Scott was visibly shaking as he said, “You said that we had one shot. This—this was our shot. We shot it. It's _shot!_ Six stones or nothing! _Six stones or nothing_ —”

“You're repeating yourself; you know that? You're repeating yourself,” Tony noted, looking up at him. Sure, they could go around blaming each other and wallowing in their failure, but what did that help? Nothing. There had to be another way, they just had to find it. They could make more Pym Particles or find them somewhere. There was a military base somewhere that he knew of. What was its name? Or they could kidnap Hank Pym and force him to make more of them for him, though that would probably mess things up further than Tony had already done by losing the Tesseract _and_ releasing the chaos god from their past selves.

Scott mocked back, “You're repeating yourself. You're repeating yourself. You know—No.”

“Dude, come on.” Tony shot him a look that said, _calm-down-this-isn’t-helping._

“You never wanted a time heist; you went on board with the time heist—” he accused, and Tony cut him off.

“I dropped the ball,” he cut. Sure, he hadn’t supported the plan in the beginning, but he was on board _now._ He had to see his kid again and he would finish this at the cost of everything but his family. What else mattered?

“You ruined the time heist,” Scott finished.

Tony challenged, “Is that what I did?” _It is._

“Yeah!” Scott yelled and Tony was _one second_ away from railing him before he saw Steve’s chiding look that he couldn’t ignore any longer.

It was the Sceptre. It had to be. That damned thing had messed with them on the Helicarrier in 2012; it made them more irritable, pick fights, and it wasn’t helping anything right now. They couldn’t afford to let the thing ruin the mission. 

This wasn’t just _a_ mission, this was _the_ mission, the one that _truly_ mattered. They had a chance, _one chance,_ to avenge their fallen teammates. Wanda, Vision, Sam, Hill, Fury, _Peter._ That’s why he was in this, for _them_. Sure, Lang was right, he hadn’t been all for this in the beginning because he couldn’t lose Pepper and Morgan. He _couldn’t._ But they had a chance and he had to take it.

That military base—Tony was relatively sure that the Tesseract had been there at some point, the early seventies maybe? Hank Pym was there too, he thought. If they couldn’t find him there, they could fall back on his half-formed kidnapping plan.

If they could go there, Camp… something. Started with an “L”. _Lehigh_. If they could get to Camp Lehigh at the right time, they could get the Tesseract and more Pym Particles for their journey home. That could really work.

“Are there any other options with the Tesseract?” Steve asked.

Tony opened his mouth to answer, but Scott beat him to it again. “No, no, no. There's no other options. There's no do-overs. We're not going anywhere else. We have one particle left. _Each_. That's it, alright? We use that—Bye, bye. You're not going home.”

“Yeah,” said Steve, full of nothing but determination despite Scott’s negative thoughts. “Well, if we don't try, then no one else is going home either.”

“If I might interject,” said a terribly familiar accented voice from behind Steve. “I think I can help with that.” A brief flash of green and gold revealed the trickster god, who was looking surprisingly okay-ish for someone who was just full-body slammed by the Hulk less than an hour ago. It shouldn’t have been that surprising, though; he had been walking around and easily making fun of Steve earlier.

Tony was out of the car in a heartbeat, Steve immediately whirled and raised his shield at the same time Tony’s suit formed around him. Scott’s helmet flicked up and Tony charged his repulsors. 

Tony noticed the Sceptre pulse in the corner of his vision and Loki winced a little, probably due to several broken ribs, as he leaned against the side of the building under the fire escape.

Reindeer Games (he still needed a better nickname for the guy) was still wearing armour. The chains were gone, along with the helmet, to reveal a curly and frizzy mess of black hair. He was just there, non-aggressively leaning against the building with his arms curled around his torso. Yeah, broken ribs. His face still looked beat up and Tony had to imagine he was walking around with a few other broken bones and maybe a concussion based on how he was grimacing with every slight movement and sound. But then again, he was Asgardian; they were pretty sturdy.

_“I’m detecting a low, unknown energy signature from him, boss,”_ said FRIDAY in his ear. Freaking magic. Or maybe the Tesseract, but…

“The Tesseract?” he asked FRIDAY.

_“The energy signatures don’t match,”_ answered his AI. _“It’s closer in similarity to Thor’s, but not identical.”_

Okay then. Magic. Great. That word still made his teeth itch, even after living in the Avengers Compound with Wanda for a time. Even after the Bleecker Street magician and meeting the _literal Norse God of Thunder._ Magic—he hated the word.

But, Tony knew that if he had a chance to study it and _really_ figure out how it worked (not just whatever vague explanation Thor came up with, then deflected with a brief, “I’m not the expert.”), he would take it and find out what more there was to it other than, as Thor had said, “Talent, will, and inherent ability.” That explanation was basically useless. He needed numbers, science, something _solid_ to work with, then he could interface it with his tech and oh-ho boy, the things he could do with that.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Steve asked, breaking Tony out of his short daydream about figuring out magic.

Loki raised his hands and said defensively, “So I was right. You _are_ breaking the laws of time for something.” His expression changed from one of apprehension to…weariness? Disappointment? Despair? Tony wasn’t sure. “I suppose you’re here for the Tesseract.”

_What?_

How did he know that?

Both Steve and Lang said nothing, but looked at him, obviously watching for any intention of attack.

Reindeer Games looked at the paved ground and closed his eyes. “Did he win then?” There was no question about who “he” was. Thanos. Nebula still referred to him as “my father”, though she had no reason to. Thanos wasn’t her father; he was her kidnapper and her torturer. Thor didn’t say his name, _ever,_ and Tony knew that the god stiffened and shut down whenever someone said it aloud.

There was an expression on his face that Tony couldn’t read like he couldn’t read Natasha when she didn’t want him to. It didn’t worry him with her; she was family and her secrets were her own. It did with Loki. But there was something _there_ —something in the way he didn’t say, _Thanos,_ even when now was _definitely_ not the time to be playing the _let’s-use-vague-pronouns_ game. 

“What?” asked Steve quietly, taking a step back. Open shock displayed on his face. He lowered the shield an inch to look over the top of it and handed the Sceptre to Scott who was prepared to shrink it if Loki made a move for the mind-control glow stick.

Tony let the nanites recede around his helmet, earning another look of surprise from the other two. “Wh—” he started.

“Did he win?” Loki repeated a little louder. “I can only think of one reason why you _idiots_ would break the laws of time for the Tesseract. _Did he win?”_ The god looked up and his green eyes flickered between the three of them expectantly.

_Green?_ But in the tower, right before he was thrown from the window, they were blue. How—Sceptre. Oh god. _Oh god._ They had messed up. The pieces fell into place; how Loki didn’t resist after the Hulk smashed him. Hell, that was probably how the connection broke in the first place. Tony was going to need to have a chat with Thor when this was over.

Tony nodded and took a place beside Steve, repulsors fully charged and pointed right at the would-be-conqueror, though he had a sickening feeling that he wouldn’t need them.

“Yeah,” Steve answered harshly. “How do you know about Thanos?”

Loki flinched, though barely noticeably, shook his head and glared at them. “It doesn’t matter. Are you going to fix it? Undo it, somehow?”

Tony nodded again and Scott asked, “Why do you care?”

Loki ignored the question, held out an arm, palm facing upwards, and the Tesseract appeared in his hand a moment later with a flash of green. “Take it.”

“Um, I’m sorry,” said Scott. “Aren’t you the guy that just tried to take over Earth? How do we know this isn’t a trick or something?” He pointed a finger at Loki, who cast him a withering look.

At Loki’s silence, Tony added, “It’s a fair question.” Thor had told them not to take anything Loki did at face value. There was always a hidden scheme, some ploy, going on that they _had_ to expect and anticipate before it got them. Tony couldn’t see what he gained by this but… _green, not blue._ There was always a hidden scheme and they had been stupid enough to just do what SHIELD told them to: point their weapons in the direction of the “Bad Guy”, and don’t question it.

Holy hell, Loki was probably _trying_ to lose. That’s why nothing made sense, why he would go for the iridium in _Germany_ of all places and make the big speeches about freedom and superiority. It was just like Selvig; subtly trying to sabotage the invasion from within.

_“He sent Loki,”_ Bruce had said in the wizard’s house. _Sent?_

“No tricks,” said Loki flatly. “Take the damned cube and I’ll see what can be done about the divergent timeline.” He dropped the Tesseract on the ground, letting it slide out of his fingers and bounce twice before it landed at Tony’s feet. Tony half-expected it to break or explode or at least react, but it just dinged like a wind chime and warbled a little, pulsing twice with each strike on the ground.

Tony picked it up with a gauntleted hand and had FRIDAY scan it. _Target Acquired,_ read on his display in bold green letters. Huh, so he was telling the truth. He had FRIDAY analyze the energy signature just in case. It came back positive. “Why’re you just handing it over?” Wouldn’t he want to get out of here as quickly as possible?

Merlin’s glare intensified and he frowned deeply. “My motivations are irrelevant.” There was a moment of silence. 

_Green, not blue._ There was something he was missing. Tony couldn’t stop the question forming on his tongue, “Was this—” he gestured around at the destruction, “—was this you? Thanos sent you, didn’t he?”

Loki flinched, then breathed, “I knew what I was doing. There was no other way.” His whole posture went rigid and Tony knew there was more. But… 

_Tony, there was no other way._

“To win?” he asked, dropping his hands. Was the phrasing coincidental or not? There was only one way to find out. “You know Strange? Were you in on this too, from the beginning? Bleecker Street wizard, arrogance to match yours, and a very loyal floating cape?”

Loki narrowed his eyes at him and looked confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I did this _to get out,_ ” Loki answered through gritted teeth, and Tony froze.

_Metal suits and welding equipment. Hot forges and that dirty, filthy cave. Sweat. Sparks. Water. Over and over again. Water. Hands everywhere and water again and again._

_To get out._

_“When you are done, he will set you free.”_

_“No, he won’t.”_

_There was no other way_ to get out.

“Return to your time, Stark.” Loki’s voice snapped him out of it. “Do what you came here for, then return the cube and the Sceptre when you’re done with them.”

“We will anyway,” Steve assured, finally lowering his shield completely. “But what—Tony, what are you talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Loki interrupted and sighed, exasperated. “What happened is done. Fix your future and _go._ ”

“It does matter very much actually,” Tony disagreed. “If he used the Mind Stone on you—” Loki looked moments away from bolting or just disappearing, whatever it was he did— “you’re not at fault for this. You’re innocent.”

Steve looked at him like he had lost his mind and hey, maybe he had; but what the hell, he needed to know. Scott was swearing under his breath and gripping the Sceptre a little too tightly.

“I’m hardly innocent, Stark,” said Loki, scowling still, but Tony could see the rising panic behind the glare. “As I said, I knew what I was doing. This was the option that took the least life, but my intent does not absolve me of the guilt that comes with those lives lost.” He paused, looking, perhaps, genuinely remorseful. “It was my actions that led me to Th—the Titan— “ Tony didn’t miss how his eyes widened at the near slip-up “—actions that I doubt you—even with your additional years of experience—would know much, if anything, about. I brought this down upon myself and I found a way to amend it, nothing more. Unfortunately, my method of fixing my mistakes created more. What you know now does not change anything.”

Steve frowned and Tony had a good idea what he was thinking about as he finally clued in on what Loki was saying without _really_ saying. “It makes a big difference,” said the super-soldier. “Whether you did all of this because you _wanted_ to or because you _had_ to.” The statement was pointed, but Tony didn’t take the bait. Then again, it did seem a little hypocritical to forgive one villain for something done under duress but not another.

But it was _different._

(How?)

“Why didn’t you _say_ anything?” Tony asked before his thoughts led him in a different direction. “We could have taken him on years ago before we got into fights over paperwork and… distractions.” _Distractions_ —what a _simplistic_ explanation for everything they had gone through since they fought at the airport in Germany. If the look on Steve’s face was any indication, he didn’t entirely agree with Tony’s word choice either.

Loki shook his head. “It _doesn’t_ matter,” Loki repeated with a hint of a snarl in his voice, “because I am dead in your timeline, am I not?”

“Are you a time-magician too?” asked Lang, but he was ignored as Tony and Steve both mumbled out affirmative answers. Loki didn’t seem to care about anything Scott had to say.

“Then nothing can be done about—” he waved an arm around randomly, “—this. It is already done and years in your past. Go _home._ You may correct your history books if it is that important to you, but I care not what happens beyond my death save that _he_ is defeated. _Go,_ Stark.”

Tony opened his mouth to object again, but Loki kept talking.

“If you truly want to make things right,” he trailed off and his eyes wandered, only to settle back on the Tesseract in Tony’s hand. He jerked his head at the cube. “Make him pay.”

Tony couldn’t disagree with that plan.

Quill and his plucky team of aliens, Wanda and Vision, the wizard who seemed to think this was the only way to win, Hill, Fury, and the kid. _Peter._

_Peter._

Yeah, he had enough reasons to throw everything he had into this fight—into this mission. What was one more? They were the Avengers, not the “pre-vengers” or the “revengers”, as Thor dubbed his little team that had disbanded shortly after it was formed. They _avenged_. That’s what they did and that’s what they _would do._ What was one more name to add to the list that got him into this mess in the first place?

With sure conviction in his voice, Tony declared, “We will.”

**Author's Note:**

> I now have a sort-of-sequel piece planned for Friday.
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


End file.
